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Internationalism and collaboration on scales both great and small were very much on the agenda for a year in Scotland's theatre scene that
rode the recessionary wave with some consistently ambitious programming
that wasn't afraid to mix up classical and popular forms. The tone was
set right at the start of the year when Vox Motus presented their
biggest show to date, The Infamous Brothers Davenport. As scripted by
Peter Arnott and conceived by Candice Edmunds and Jamie Harrison, the
play dissected the alleged supernatural powers of a pair of
vaudevillian siblings with a box of tricks all of their own.
Vox Motus' look at artifice and belief was oddly book-ended at the end
of the year with a set of similar themes from Peepolykus' The Arthur
Conan Doyle Appreciation Society at the Traverse. Both were bested,
however, by Rob Drummond's Bullet Catch, a close-up solo dissection of
the same terrain that created real magic out of similarly styled hokum.
Also …

Time was when the main
event for Hogmanay in Edinburgh saw revellers gather en masse outside
the Tron Kirk on the corner of the High Street where the bells would
be seen in with inebriated abandon. This pilgrimage to the
seventeenth century landmark built at the behest of Charles 1
continued long after the Tron closed as a church in 1952, and only
since the rise of large-scale Hogmanay events in the last twenty
years did the tradition go into decline as the focus moved to Princes
Street.
This year sees an
attempt to revive the spirit of old Tron Kirk gatherings in the form
of something styled as A Festival of the Extraordinary. Initiated and
backed by the Drambuie drinks company, this three day event runs from
the night before to the morning after Hogmanay, and aims to bridge
elements of the new year's tradition both old and new. This is done
with a mixture of film screenings and performances in the daytime
under the banner of The Drambuie Surreal Sessions, while the evenings
are…

As with the season
they're generally cashing in on, Christmas albums somewhat mercifully
only come round once a year. While much festive fare is as
depressingly jolly as it is unbearably ubiquitous – see Top of the
Pops 2's annual Xmas special, plus department stores' endless looping
of the Now That's What I Call Christmas compilation – there have
been some genuinely inventive reimaginings of the season of goodwill
in pop form.
Both Motown and Phil
Spector released superb Christmas compilations, while The Beach Boys
and James Brown filled a whole album apiece to their very singular
takes on festive fare. On a more leftfield front, both ZE Records and
Factory-connected Belgian label Les Disques du Crepescule released
Christmas albums. While the former gifted the world The Waitresses
joyous Christmas Wrapping on ZE's dryly named A Christmas Album in
1981, the latter's Ghosts of Christmas Past collection found the
likes of The Durutti Column, Cabaret Voltaire an…

At first glance, this
year's Edinburgh's Hogmanay festival which kicks off this weekend is
as civic-mindedly populist as it comes. Or at least that's the case
as presented in its brochure with a big number '13' emblazoned on the
cover in neon-styled lettering with the words 'BE LUCKY' beneath. The
annual torchlight procession is in there, as is the candle-lit
concert at St Giles and the Concert in the Gardens this year
headlined by the stadium pomp of Simple Minds. The Loony Dook is a
must, and even the sled dog races have made a return this year.

Look beyond all this,
however, and there is a very subtle subversion in the programme that
takes the avant-garde out of the art-house and unleashes it on the
streets and in some of Edinburgh's most august institutions. Most of
this is to be found in Your Lucky Day, a New Year's Day construction
which invites revellers to throw a dice which, depending on how they
land, will take them to one of twelve unknow…

4 starsSo-called 'regional' album compilations were crucial statements of
independence during the post-punk fall-out that briefly shook up the
bone-idle London-centric record company hegemony. Snapshot documents of
blink-and-you'll-miss-em scenes in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield,
Brighton and other cities proliferated on shoestring DIY labels, which,
politically, were as much about self-determination as music.
By collecting and selecting new material from eight Glasgow-based acts,
this new collaboration between three of the city's micro-labels
(including the debut release by venue Stereo) does something similar in
capturing the here-and-nowness of a fecund and forever-changing
independent musical landscape.
Tut Vu Vu, Palms, Organs of Love, Gummy Stumps, Sacred Paws, The Rosy
Crucifixion, Muscles of Joy, Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gate Lock
Pickers all present new work in an elaborate box set made up of two 12”
vinyl LPs, a CD and a booklet featuring a…

4 stars
With art school
credentials to spare, Colvin Cruikshank's trio of Edinburgh
scene-setters mash up a grab-bag of left-field post-punk
conceptualists to make something that seems to channel the ghosts of
every act who ever made the Wee Red Bar such a crucial hot-bed of
musical and artistic eclectica while still sounding oh so very now.
There's even a glam rock styled tribute to the bands alma mater on
'E.C.A'. Musically jaunty and lyrically wry, Snide Rhythms are
possessed with an off-kilter quirkiness bordering on brilliance that
more than justifies the band's name. On 'Yah Versus Schemie', they
even manage to dissect the sociological roots of class war in one
minute and fifteen seconds with a wit that withers even as it puts
two fingers up to both parties before running away snickering. The List, December 2012
ends

When Lady Gaga embarked on the early stages of her Monster Ball tour in
2009, it not only marked the provocative pop princess' crossover into
the major league with a spectacular show described by some as the first
ever pop electro opera. In it's look, Monster Ball also unwittingly
formed a bridge between a pub theatre in Shepherd's Bush, art-punk band
Wire, the Royal Opera House, lingerie label Agent Provocateur and the
closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. All of these, including
Monster Ball, featured the work of theatre designer Es Devlin.
Fans can get a taste of Devlin's work for Monster Ball in
Transformation and Revelation: Gormley to Gaga – Designing For
Performance, an exhibition of some thirty-three major British designers
which opened at Summerhall in Edinburgh this weekend.
“It was a very interesting point in her trajectory,” says Devlin. “For
Monster Ball we were given an initial budget, then almost every day it
went higher. It was desig…

4 stars
Forget Bowie and Bing.
As winter warmers go, Bill Wells' reinvention of twelve festive
favourites featuring vocalists Lorna Gilfedder (Golden Grrrls), Kate
Sugden (Johnny and the Entries), Aby Vulliamy (The One Ensemble) and
Gerard Black (Francois and the Atlas Mountains) is an exquisite
slowed-down treat. With each of the singers offering more reflective
and at times mournful renderings of normally celebratory
sing-alongs, from Sugden's opening take on Oh Xmas Tree, through to
the finale of We Three Kings, more depth is given to each song that
belie any notions of Nouvelle Vague style kitsch. Wells' textured
keyboard arrangements lend even more weight to a collection that puts
meaning back into a season where comfort matters as much as joy. The List, December
2012
ends

Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh until January 26th 20134 starsIf the Obscene Publications Squad are on the case of this first solo exhibition in Scotland by a York-born painter possessing a name like a pulp fiction hack, rest easy. Ellison’s monumental depictions of dog-eared Penguin book designs down the decades may look like the sort of behind-the-counter smut peddled under plain cover, but it’s the titles themselves that show off the real art of fiction.On the one hand, epic tomes such as the punk-inspired ‘Fuck Art, Let’s Dance’, the scientifically inclined ‘Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore’ and the possible Off-Broadway smash, ‘Born to Get it in the Tits Every Single Day Though’ are masterpieces of cock-snooking fantasy-wish-fulfilment obscenity a la Joe Orton’s adventures in Islington library.Beyond pop savvy fun and games and the Rude Kid style relish with which sweary-words are employed to flirt with the forbidden (as with old-school porn emporiums, the rudest title here…

The Third Door,
Edinburgh
Saturday November 24th
2012
4 stars
“Can we borrow the
support bands' guitars?” asks Iceage vocalist Elias Ronnenfelt with
the sort of sleepy-eyed mix of boredom, shyness and self-belief that
doesn't expect any answer other than action. Three songs in, and the
baby-faced Danish neo-hardcore quartet's own guitars are fucked, a
mess of snapped-string fury that's the only thing that's made them
pause for breath on this fourth date of their European tour.
With a name that
recalls a song by Joy Division in their early, proto-punk Warsaw
incarnation, Iceage's 2011debut album, New Brigade, announced to the
world a primitive outburst of teenage frustration that was both a
throwback to a million spirit-of-'76 one chord wonders and an urgent
rebirth of the same crash-and-burn attitude. With New Brigade's
follow-up on Matador Records imminent, Iceage are currently between
moments, holding on to both for dear life so tightly that broken
…

Liquid Room, Edinburgh
4 stars
Questions may be asked
about who the real head-liners were in this glorious double bill,
though in the end it was the songs that mattered. Seeing Green
Gartside's revitalised Scritti Politti live at all is a thrill, even
if a bottle of cough medicine is on standby to help Gartside's
honeyed tones. Opening with the slow skank of The 'Sweetest' Girl's
deconstruction of the love song set the bar high, but, coming so soon
after providing the live soundtrack to dancer/choreographer Michael
Clarke's latest work, Gartside's four-piece band were happy to go
through the Scritti back-catalogue without too much analysis.
Technology has made it
easier to play shiny 1980s hits like The Word Girl and Wood Beez,
which sit seamlessly alongside more recent wonders like The Boom Boom
Bap. There's one new number, which apparently references Kant's
response to cultural relativism, and only Gartside can think his
eponymous countrified h…

When Birds of Paradise
announced their new artistic team in October of this year, it came
after a heady year for disability and mixed ability initiatives. The
London Paralympics had caught the nation's imagination over the
summer more than ever before, while Birds of Paradise's appointment
of a three-way team of two joint artistic directors and a creative
producer suggested that team-work was even more important in what
looks like a major leap forward for the company. The fact that Shona
Rattray, Robert Softley Gale and Garry Robson already had a
significant track record on projects with Bird of Paradise, as well
as the disability arts sector, also meant that they'd effectively
come through the company boot room, and were already au fait with
what it's about.
“One of the nice
things is that we already do know each other,” say Rattray, “so
we can talk about ideas we've got straight away.”
“We worked out last
night that it was ten years ago this week that the thre…

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh3 stars
There's a moment in Peepolykus' new show when a medium calling on the
creator of Sherlock Holmes attempts to enter the room through the
window. As the supposed arbiter of the spirit world clambers through
the opening, he slips on the ledge, almost coming a cropper on the
street below. The fact that the performer playing the spiritual con-man
is clearly on his knees hanging on to a window at ground level doesn't
prevent at least one first night audience member from gasping audibly
at his apparent near miss with gravity.
This incident speaks volumes about this comic meditation on truth and
artifice in which suspension of disbelief is subject as much as form.
It's framed around a faux lecture by PhD candidate Jennifer McGeary,
who, along with a couple of actors she's hired to illustrate her spiel,
takes a step back in time to meet Dr Doyle himself. The fact that her
hired help bear a suspicious resemblance to Peepolykus…

Pitlochry Festival Theatre4 starsIn terms of scene-setting, the snow-dappled Perthshire hills beyond the theatre already gave director John Durnin a head start for his production of the classic Irving Berlin-scored musical. While It’s remarkable that David Ives and Paul Blake’s stage version of Michael Curtiz’ 1954 big-screen vehicle for Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye has only been around since 2004, it’s a gift to see a show normally reserved for the commercial circuit in such refreshingly close-up form. Beyond the uber-slick song and dance routines from a twenty-strong cast plus an exuberant ten-piece band, it’s also a fascinatingly telling period piece.Ex GIs turned big-time double act Bob and Phil wind up in an unseasonally sunny Vermont for Christmas with sisters Betty and Judy. With their former general’s hotel in hock, Bob and Phil conspire to put on a benefit gig for the old boy, doing the decent thing with the girls en route.As Bob and Phil, Grant Neal and Simon Coulthard are mat…

Festival Theatre,
Edinburgh
3 stars
Before the irresistible
rise of the juke-box musical, the rock and roll tribute show was
king. Queen too if this warts and all Tina Turner homage is anything
to go by, as devisers Pete Brooks and John Miller reclaim the form's
simple but effective attributes in Brooks' co-production with Bob
Eaton. Eaton is a safe pair of hands, having defined the rock and
roll musical while running Liverpool's Everyman Theatre. It is
significant there is no writer's credit in what amounts to a strip
cartoon summation of church-going teenager Anna Mae Bullock's rise,
fall and subsequent reinvention in what's now regarded as Turner's
1980s heyday.
This was initially down
to Bullock meeting one Ike Turner, a driven musical genius smart
enough to see the potential in Bullock's voice enough to put her
centre stage. As the pair become entwined personally as well as
professionally, Turner's ambition turns to rage, misogyny, drug
addict…

How do you go about
staging the complete works of Sherlock Holmes? It's a question even
Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional pipe-smoking detective hero himself
might have trouble with. It's nevertheless one which comically
inclined theatre troupe Peepolykus asked themselves when they decided
to make a new show. Audiences may or may well find out some kind of
answer in The Arthur Conan Doyle Appreciation Society, a new piece
scripted by Peepolykus founders Steven Canny and John Nicholson,
which opens this week at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre, whose artistic
director, Orla O'Loughlin, directs.

“We knew that we
wanted to write something about Arthur Conan Doyle, and we thought it
might be an interesting idea to try and fit every Sherlock Holmes
story into one thing,” says Nicholson, who, alongside Peepolykus
regular, Javier Marzan and Scottish actress Gabriel Quigley, will be
performing in the new show. “We came up with an idea for that,
which felt like quite good fun, but…

Tron Theatre, Glasgow3 starsThe guy sitting at the table in the Tron’s Victorian Bar is on his mobile speaking to the wife. He’s on a promise, he reckons, and is about to hit the big time. She’s telling him to go for it, but if he’s on to something, she wants a piece of the action too. So the guy goes back up to the bar, which is when things get really weird for Macbeth.Or that’s the impression you get from Ian Macdonald’s half-hour Gaelic translation of Shakespeare’s Scottish play commissioned by Glasgow Life/Glasch Beo. At the moment, Liz Carruthers’ work-in-progress production (although not advertised as such) is a one-man affair, with Daibhidh Walker playing Macbeth as a leather-jacketed bar-room big man who suddenly finds he’s a contender enough to take on all-comers.While some of the original text’s subtleties may be lost to non-Gaelic speakers, it’s not hard to get the broader gist of things as Walker’s straight out of Shameless Macbeth downs another drink. Was that Banquo si…

About Me

Coffee-Table Notes is the online archive of Neil Cooper. Neil is an arts writer and critic based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Neil currently writes for The Herald, Product, Scottish Art News, Bella Caledonia & The List. He has contributed chapters to The Suspect Culture Book (Oberon), Dear Green Sounds: Glasgow's Music Through Time and Buildings (Waverley) & Scotland 2021 (Eklesia), & co-edited a special Arts and Human Rights edition of the Journal of Arts & Communities (Intellect). Neil has written for A-N, The Quietus, Map. Line, The Wire, Plan B, The Arts Journal, The Times, The Independent, Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman, Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday, Sunday Times (Scotland), Scottish Daily Mail, Edinburgh Evening News, Is This Music? & Time Out Edinburgh Guide. He has written essays for Suspect Culture theatre company, Alt. Gallery, Newcastle, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Berwick upon Tweed Film and Media Arts Festival & Ortonandon. Neil has appeared on radio and TV, has provided programme essays for John Good and Co, & has lectured in arts journalism at Napier University, Edinburgh.